


what a great day to be gay

by natigail



Series: Phan Reality One Shots [12]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Boys In Love, Coming Out, Coming Out To You, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Everyone Is Gay, Introspection, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Morning Cuddles, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 20-30 Minutes, Sleepy Cuddles, basically i'm gay, but it's all fluff and softness i promise you dan's just comparing from now to then, phil briefly mentions being outed in his part and how it's hurtful and wrong, very small reference to the suicide attempt dan mentioned in his video
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-05-07 20:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19217002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: Dan just published Basically, I’m Gay last night and he wakes up with a lighter feeling in his heart and a pair familiar of warm arms ready to wrap around him. It’s a great day to be gay.***Phil just published Coming Out To You last night and he wakes with a sense of accomplishment in his heart and so much love for the boy sleeping next to him. It's an appropriate time to share a photo of him bathed in rainbows.





	1. what a great day to be gay

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [podfic](https://drive.google.com/file/d/18CqvUjJMMSM0JE0UGrWhOibfUdKDwPSH/view), if you'd prefer that.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan just published Basically, I’m Gay last night and he wakes up with a lighter feeling in his heart and a pair familiar of warm arms ready to wrap around him. It’s a great day to be gay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dan said gay rights! Enjoy!

It has been over a year in the making. No. That’s a lie. It has been over ten years in the making. Even since he first found out that he was at least partially that gay thing that everybody kept calling him from a young age. It had always been heading to this, ever since he stepped on the path alongside Phil and started to build an online audience.

He had tried to hide from it from a long time, especially when the pressure got too much and the questions became too invasive. He wasn’t proud of some of the stuff he’d done back then but it had taken him so horrendously long to shred the internalised oppression. He wasn’t even sure if he’d fully stepped out from under its shadow.

But yesterday had been an important day and it had been the biggest leap he had ever taken in this regard. He pulled up his phone now, looking at the notes on his phone and the little video idea. It had been sitting there for years and he had almost considered making it last year but the timing hadn’t been right. He had still been too scared.

Just looking at the little note, starting off with _coming out_ had used to chill his bones. At times, he’d become so paranoid that he’d rephrased it so it wasn’t so obvious just if worst case happened and someone got their hands on his phone. He’d changed it back eventually, ones the paranoid was during its low tide.

He could officially delete it off the list of video ideas. It was done. It had taken so long to produce and it had been an emotional labour more than anything else. It had taken everything out of him. On the day that he’d filmed it, he’d collapsed into Phil’s arms afterwards, seeking comfort and reassurance which he was awarded in bundles.

Phil was beside him every step of the way, just like he’d always been ever since they met and Dan knew he wouldn’t have been strong enough to do this if it hadn’t been for the man that he considered his companion through life. Phil had saved his life, again and again, and Dan would not be who he was today if it hadn’t been for the kind-hearted man.

Dan had been anxious on his own behalf but he’d also been scared on Phil’s. He couldn’t tell his story without revealing the worst kept secret in the fandom that revolved around them. People had known without _knowing_ for years. He knew some people would come out with a _we been knew_ and it had pissed him off pre-emptively. He hoped that addressing the toxicity of such a statement within the video would help to curb it.

Phil had entirely trusted him to tell the story of them. He had trusted him to phrase it in a way that represented them and their wishes and his trusting eyes and firm hand had never wavered. Dan had placed his heart in Phil’s hands so long ago, nearly ten years now, and he had gotten a heart in return for his own. He had never treated anything with as much care as he did Phil’s heart.

He knew it was the most important thing he would ever be allowed to hold and he treated it as such. Through their consensual banter, inside jokes, gentle touches, constant reassurance and domestic happiness.

He had been allowed to break Phil’s coming out indirectly. However, Dan had to admit that the tweet that followed was funny and just so Phil. Phil had been grinning, tongue poking out of his teeth as he’d shown it do Dan. It was lowkey, humorous but also honest. It was Phil in a nutshell.

Dan had needed the long video, bloody hell it had ended up at 45 minutes, and Phil could do it in just a tweet. Dan had always been the rambler of the two and Phil was more often than not content to just say his piece, concisely and leave it at that. They were different but they complimented each other.

“Did you even sleep last night?” Phil asked with a yawn.

Dan rolled over in bed to face Phil.

“I think I passed out at some point. Maybe?” he said with a chuckle and his voice was heavy with sleep.

He had entirely too much adrenalin in his system last night to go even remotely early to bed. He had been dipping in and out of various social media sites to gauge everyone’s reaction. On some logical level, he’d tried to tell himself that it would be fine. He’d seen how other online creators was accepted and embraced when they’d come out but it didn’t take away from the fact that this was still special and important to him.

It was his coming out and no matter how many people had done it before him, none had quite had his experiences and either way, this was a huge potentially life altering thing _for him_ to do. He’d tackled his family, just last month, and how he was laying himself bare and vulnerable for essentially the whole world.

But the video wasn’t specifically to the whole world, even if he knew that anyone with an internet connection could see it. He’d learned that lesson the hard way years ago. It was to his audience first and foremost and secondarily to the people who would come later looking for reassurance. They were the people who’d shown him that it would be a safe space for him to finally come out and everything around him had reinforced it again and again. At almost every Interactive Introverts show, he’d seen pride flags and he’s posed with many of them at the meet and greets and signed even more. Every time he’d seen one or touched it, he’d felt his heart soar a little. Dan and Phil had always wanted to create a safe and accepting community but witnessing it with his own eyes and hearing the personal stories had brought it to life in a different way.

The community, his fellow creators and the people who watched his content had become a bit like a family to him. Maybe that was why he had chosen to repeat the same line as the one he’d used in that cringy email to his family.

Basically, I’m gay.

It felt good to say it. He was still a little scared of the word. It was conditioned too deeply in him for it to completely disappear, even when the support and love was pouring in from every corner. But it was feeling less scary every time he said it, like he took the bad meaning away just by uttering it with confidence and reclaiming it for himself.

“So? How does it feel?” Phil asked and reached over to rub Dan’s back and Dan wondered how long he’d gone silent as he’d retreated into his own head again. It wasn’t like Phil wasn’t used to it.

“Huh?”

“Being here, queer and filled with existential fear?” Phil said in a joking voice and nudge Dan a little almost titling him over in their shared bed.

Dan barked out a laugh and shoved Phil back, phone forgotten as it landed amongst the duvets. He pushed over his partner until they were both lying on their sides and then he wrapped his arms around Phil, almost burrowing into him.

“I could ask you too, you know,” he mumbled into the warm expanse of Phil’s neck, comforted by the familiar sense and the strong and warm arms that pulled him tighter.

“I’m feeling particularly gay this morning,” Phil said.

Dan chuckled, knowing what was coming, and Phil’s fingers ran over his ribs. A little jab that made Dan’s heart sing in his chest.

“Gay as in happy, of course,” Phil said.

“Whatever you say, language major,” Dan said.

But he thought it was very appropriate that gay could also mean happy. He didn’t used to think so. When it was used as a slur and repeated as he took the abuse growing up, he had hated it. He felt like the word was taunting him, claiming that it could mean something good, something jolly when it caused him so much fear and pain. It had almost been responsible for pushing him past an edge he couldn’t return from.

He had never felt happy to be any bit gay. He’d felt miserable and furious. He had begged to be anything but when he’d been younger.

But this morning, the morning after coming out to the whole world, he started to accept the other meaning of the word. He was wrapped up in the loving embrace of his actual soulmate, who he had been lucky enough to have in his life for nearly ten years and he hoped they would have each other until they were old, grey and sitting in matching chairs in a nursery home.

He closed his eyes and recalled all the loving words, the praise for the video that he’d worked so hard for and the overwhelming support that he might have been able to foresee but he hadn’t been able to tell how all of it would make him feel.

It made him feel warm. It made him feel loved. It made him feel gay.

Phil started to hum under his breath as he gently trailed his fingers over Dan’s shoulder. Domestic scenes like this had only been a faraway fantasy when Dan had still been in school. He’d see it in movies, between straight couples, and his heart would break because he thought he could never have this.

When he’d first started seeing Phil, with all that horrible distance between them, he’d lapped up every single domestic moment and committed them to memory. He hadn’t been sure if he’d ever get another. Now, he had so many more than he could even count. Every single day he felt the easy domestic life with Phil but he often had to just pause for a beat to appreciate it. Now was one of those moments and Dan could feel it imprinting on his mind.

The day after they both came out to the world, they were in bed, lying close as their breaths synched to each other like old friends falling into the familiar step. Dan was almost sure that his and Phil’s heartbeats had learned to beat in perfect unison.

Soulmates were a ridiculous concept. It was too flimsy for someone with Dan’s level of cynicism but how was he to argue with it on any reasonable level when he felt like his entire life had been made so much better because of the one person in his arms?

“You never answered my question,” Phil said, voice soft. He was just noting it; he wasn’t demanding an answer but Dan knew Phil and he was trying to coax him back to the living world and a little out of his head.

It was probably a good thing. He’d spent way too long in there over the whole process of making the script, filming and editing the video. It was time he returned more firmly to the life outside of his head.

Dan opened his eyes and looked up at Phil. He was resting his chin on Phil’s chest and looking up at him as if he was the literal sun. With his unruly hair, morning breath and glasses with entirely too many smudges that he should be able to see out of them properly. He was beautiful and wonderful and he was here in Dan’s arms, which tightened around him as he kept looking up.

“You know how I’m feeling?” Dan asked, voice a little soft.

“How?” Phil asked, blue eyes staring into Dan’s brown ones with sincerity and a playful smile on his lips.

They both knew where this was going. Just like Dan had known and only needed to chuckle to reveal that he knew what Phil had meant when he’d said the word. They were so in sync, so used to each other that they sometimes could read the other better than themselves. Dan took a deep breath and he felt how in that moment, as Phil’s chest breathing calm but steady rose to meet his own.

“I’m feeling fucking gay,” Dan said and his lips split into the widest smile.

Phil returned one just as might and Dan revelled in the way it crinkled his eyes and made him look so handsome. Happy Phil was the most beautiful Phil of all and Dan intended to do everything in his power to make sure that Phil was always smiling.

 “I’m proud of you,” Phil said and pulled Dan closer to his chest and his arms were strong now, squeezing him tight. “You’re amazing.”

“No, that’s you,” Dan said teasingly, squeezing back with just as much might.

Phil cackled and Dan snorted out a breath through his nose.

It felt so liberating to say the once dreaded word out loud now. It had felt good during filming, even if he had to take a moment to compose himself before letting the word spill from his lips. He had not spontaneously combusted then and he did not do so now. But he did feel the warmth spread from his core but it was not an explosion or dangerous flames burning him. It was a pair of arms, the sense of rainbows on his skin and a lighter feeling in his heart.

Pressing publish on the video had made a weight finally lift from his heart and Dan hadn’t realised how heavy it had been until it was gone. He felt different. This was a new era. It had taken him so long but he was proud that he’d even made it here at all.

For the very first time in his life, he didn’t feel that underlying feeling of dread that had always been there, even in the happy moments. It might come back but for now it was nowhere to be seen or felt and Dan just felt happy.

He felt gay.

It was a great day to be gay.

The future was at his and Phil’s feet.

He hoped they’d have endless gay days in the future.

It could only get gayer.

Dan was so ready for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](https://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/185593994240/what-a-great-day-to-be-gay-phan-one-shot)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I haven’t written phanfic in a couple of months but obviously yesterday stirred up a lot of things. One of those was the desire to write fluffy and domestic Phan stuff. I’m so proud of both of the boys and they deserve all the love in the world. As always, feedback is appreciated. I hope you liked it.


	2. an appropriate photo to share today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil just published Coming Out To You last night and he wakes with a sense of accomplishment in his heart and so much love for the boy sleeping next to him. It's an appropriate time to share a photo of him bathed in rainbows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phil also said gay rights! Enjoy!

Phil had first started to come out to people over a decade ago. It had started with his friends at university, the first time he had ever blurted the words out to anyone that wasn’t his mirrored image. It had been liberating in a way that he hadn’t known that he’d needed.

It was one thing to come to terms with his sexuality, hidden and by himself, from a young age but it was another to have people know and support him because of it. It made the internal shame feel a little easier to carry, even if he had always known it was unfounded. It felt good to be openly himself, even if he had to keep coming out his whole life. He knew that was just the way things had to be.

When he’d been younger, he had passed as a straight guy and he hadn’t done much to deter anyone from that line of thinking. He hadn’t been ready to proclaim himself gay, not when he couldn’t be sure how people would react. He had waited until he was in a new town, living on his own and allowing himself to take part of the university experience.

It was a new start. He had the opportunity to shape people’s perception of him without anyone having known him from before. He was in complete control of the narrative and he was so thankful for that. He was also thankful that he could finally start dating guys, even if that came with its own challenges. Like finding guys to date.

It hadn’t really occurred to him that any of his friends from back home might find the profile on the dating site, or that it would spread like a rumour all over town. It was frightening because over this Phil had no control. Some of those people had been in his life since he was just a young boy and he couldn’t help but fear that they would react badly and he would lose them.

Not that he would want to keep them around if they were prejudiced or disgusted by him being gay but it still hurt to know that everything might change to people that he cared about.

When he made the MSN group with all of his friends, he had been shaking while he looked over his message. It was short and straight to the point. Or as straight as anything Phil could ever do. He sent it off and then promptly jumped up from the computer and moved away.

He’d been pacing, trying to distract himself with anything else, as the replies started rolling in. He had been so anxious and worried.

Thankfully, everyone reacted well. They didn’t shun him and it soothes the ache a little, even if he hated that he hadn’t been the one to tell them. It should have been done on his terms. It was always the individual’s choice whether or not to come out and anyone who outed anyone took that away from them, no matter if they might argue that the intention was good.

Phil dated here and there and it had been fun but he’d still been craving a real connection. He had never really expected it to come from a sweet boy that kept commenting on his videos but fate had a fun way of working out sometimes.

Phil was grateful that Dan had reached out first. He was thankful that Dan had persisted until Phil started to smile every time that he saw that somewhat stupid username on various platforms. Quickly, danisnotonfire became his Dan.

Dan was asleep next to him right now; on the day they woke up after pride month had officially ended. But the pride Phil felt in his chest would never really end – it was there all year around. Dan was breathing softly, bare chest rising and falling in a soothing and familiar pattern that Phil had studied before.

Phil would have snuggled up closer to him if he didn’t know that it would have stirred him awake. He looked quite peaceful right now.

He got to wake up to Dan every morning. They started pretty much every single day together, whether it be in their home or on the road. It had been a fantasy that Phil had never been sure that he’d be able to have. It had started to form, subconsciously in the back of his head, the first time Dan had stayed over at Phil’s parents and Phil had woken up to see the young boy sleeping much like he was now.

He’s grown in so many ways since then but he still had the same eyes and he still looked at Phil with the same adoration.

It was really no wonder that Phil’s parents had been able to put two and two together with all the times that Dan stayed over. None of them had really been that subtle about it but they had been too wrapped up in each other to care.

Phil had always thought that his family would be okay with it but still it was lovely when the support had been instantaneous. They loved him, all of him, including the gay part. Phil considered himself lucky. He knew the horror stories of people being thrown out because of their sexuality and his heart ached for those people. It ached for young Dan too, who had been sure back in the day that he wouldn’t be accepted that he had kept postponing coming out.

But not anymore.

Neither of them was hiding it anymore. Their families, their friends, their colleagues, their community and strangers on the Internet all knew now. Phil smiled and looked at Dan’s sleeping frame again. He suddenly didn’t care about not waking him. Without his glasses, Phil could only really see his general outline and that wouldn’t do. Instead of picking up his glasses from the nightstand, Phil snuggled close almost squishing his face against Dan’s as the world came into focus.

His world came into focus.

His world with the smallest dusting of freckles, warm skin and brown eyes slowly blinking awake at being jostled around.

“Morning,” Dan mumbled and then blinked a couple of more times.

Their faces were so close that Phil would get butterfly kisses if he closed the distance a little more. Instead, he just bopped his nose gently against Dan and pulled his arms tighter around the other boy’s frame.

“So…” Dan muttered.

“What?” Phil asked, beaming up at him. This close he could see the different nuances of Dan’s eyes. At some point, long ago, Dan had called his eyes boring brown and the colour of poo. He couldn’t be more wrong and Phil had quickly beat that insecurity out of him. Dan’s eyes were beautiful, full of light and colour when he was happy and they were even stunning when they were affected by a darker shadow that drained the life a little out of them.

Right now, though, they were practically smiling back at Phil.

“How does it feel?” Dan asked, echoing the question that Phil had asked Dan when they had woken up the day after his own coming out video. Phil supposed it was only fair.

“Gay,” Phil said, smile widening even further. “I’m so very gay.”

“Hi So Very Gay. It’s nice to meet you,” Dan quipped back.

“Bad dad jokes? Really? This early in the morning? And you call me cheesy,” Phil said, even as giggles bubbled in his chest.

He leaned close, this time letting his eyelashes flutter softly against Dan’s cheek. It felt so natural to be this close to each other, to hover their faces just centimetres apart. Every single barrier had carefully been deconstructed in all the time they had known each other. Noting remained to separate them anymore and they always knew the other’s boundaries.

It would have been hard not to, after having spent nearly ten years together.

“Hey,” Dan said softly and stroked his palm up Phil’s elbow to pull his attention back, even if they were still so very close.

“Yeah?” Phil replied in an equally soft response.

“Thank you,” Dan said.

It could be a thank you for a lot of different things but Phil could read Dan’s expression and pinpoint what he was thanking him for.

For waiting, for being patience, for essentially going back into the closest.

But Dan didn’t need to thank Phil for any of that. He had done it out of an immense love for the boy and he would do it all over again without a beat of hesitation. He had just wanted Dan to be comfortable, for him to be ready to come out on his own terms.

No one should ever be forcibly outed by someone else.

Phil had been lucky that his had gone well, all things considered, but it was still a huge violation. And since getting an audience on the internet, it hadn’t been the first time someone had tried to do so.

The rumours and assumptions had put a strain on Dan and Phil’s relationship at times, but they had always chosen each other and done everything they could to protect the other. People liked to joke that Dan was Phil trash and his defence squad because Dan fought so obviously sometimes but Phil knew he fought just as hard. They wanted to be together and they wouldn’t let anything force them apart.

There really wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for each other. And really, they didn’t need to thank the other. It was part of the deal with them.

“You don’t have to say thank you,” Phil said and reached up to run his hands through Dan’s messy nest of curls. “You never need to say thank you. You know that.”

Dan moved before Phil had expected it and he soon found himself pinned under the boy as Dan snuggled into Phil’s neck and hugged his arms around Phil’s torso in a grip that was almost bruising.

“You know…” Dan muttered against Phil’s skin. Whenever he did that, Phil always felt like the words were almost resonating inside of his body, absorbing Dan in every way. “I think you almost managed to say gay as many times as I did despite the difference in video length.”

Phil let out a snort. “I doubt it. But I suppose I did repeat it a couple of times. It felt good.”

“I’m sorry for-“

“No,” Phil said sternly and cut Dan off with his own lips. “I will not hear any apologies or thank yous from you. I’m very happy with the way I came out. It felt right. I got to decide how to do it, in subtle stages without pulling too much a fuss. Your video, my tweet and now my own video. I had the control every single step of the way.”

“You gave me free rein,” Dan reminded him, eyes big as he looked at his partner.

“I give you everything,” Phil said, voice teasing even as the words vibrated with honesty.

“That’s cheesy.”

“You’re cheesy.”

“No, I’m not or you wouldn’t like me so much,” Dan argued.

“You’re an idiot,” Phil muttered in correction, tone too fond and endeared to match with the words.

Phil sighed and leaned further into the bed beneath him. Dan had almost planted himself across his chest, clinging on like a koala and resting his lips near Phil’s throat, near where his pulse was beating steadily.

Visibly beating for the boys in his arms.

A gay heartbeat.

This was the biggest scale that Phil had ever come out to. It wasn’t just a lady in the shop or a new friend or colleague where he casually dropped it in conversation. This was something more tangible.

At first, he had thought that maybe Dan mentioning him in his video or the tweet would have been enough. Then he wondered if he really should just upload the seven second clip of him in the closet, sitting on those damn checkered bedsheet to troll everyone.

But he had seen the response to Dan’s video. He had gone through the comment section with him and seen how much it helped people. It was a masterpiece of a video and so very much Dan and Phil knew his own would look different but he felt the urge to make one all the same.

Every story was unique and everyone had their own way of coming out. It just had to be authentic to yourself. It was all it needed to be.

So, Phil decided to share his story, it was short and even light-hearted as he mostly glossed over the few negative experiences. He wanted this to be a positive space. His channel had always been that for him and he wasn’t about to dishonour that now. Still, he couldn’t help but subtle call out the wrongdoers and urge people to understand.

He didn’t really care about so-called haters in terms of himself. He had been on the Internet for far too long and his skin had long ago learned to not let any damage in. But there were other queer and LGBTQ+ people in the comments and he wanted to protect them.

He and Dan had met so very many during their last tour, seen pride flags and heard stories of how they helped people accept themselves and come out. They had managed that while being closeted and so Phil could only hope that proper coming out videos could help people even more. It was because of the people it might help that he made the video.

He had come out to his community.

He had come out to tell his story.

He had come out to help other people.

People like himself and Dan.

He wanted to give everyone hope that the bright future was just around the corner. So much had already changed since Phil had come out for the first time. He believed in the future, especially after having felt and seen the support for both him and Dan this month. He had a photo saved on his phone of himself, bathed in rainbows that they had taken when Dan had filmed his video. He already planned to post it later today. He would proudly wear the rainbow on his skin, finally stepping fully out of the closet, metaphorically holding Dan’s hand. It was the right time.

He was gay, it was great and he was so happy.

The sky was clear and the future was bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](https://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/186005582066/an-appropriate-photo-to-share-today-phan-one)
> 
> Have I made you all emotional? I surely did so to myself while I was writing. The air of confidence with which Phil spoke in the video was just so wonderful to witness and his story is so important too. I love both of these boys and I'm so happy that they're out and so very gay (in both senses of the word).
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little one parter turned two parter and as always comments are heartily accepted. Thank you for reading.


End file.
